


Words, Words, Words

by Newtdew25



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Coffee, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 04:05:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8734249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newtdew25/pseuds/Newtdew25
Summary: David Jacobs is the hardworking, if over-caffeinated co-head of the English department.Jack Kelly is a loud, proud Phys. Ed teacher and baseball coach.They don't quite fit, but a supposed rumor, an essay, and coffee can make them connect in ways they hadn't anticipated. It's amazing what the use of words can accomplish.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this features the ever-present High School AU and casts the characters as the teachers instead, meaning they're in their early to mid thirties by now. However, I did my best to write Jack and David as faithfully as I could in respect to their characterization.
> 
> Sarah and Katherine do get together, but this is not the main focus of the story. So that moment is told as a memory, if that makes any sense.
> 
> Also I wrote this as a shout-out to my own Advanced Placement English class. Sorry guys, but there aren't any candy canes in this fic. You all know where to go for those. *wink wink, nudge nudge*

The walk to and from the staff room was a long one that David didn’t particularly enjoy, but one that he endured solely because it was the only way he could get coffee refills throughout the day. As the co-head of New Haven Secondary School’s language arts department, he had a constantly growing pile of paperwork to file through (although not as much as Katherine Plumber), not to mention his own classes’ essays and projects. It’s a wonder that he hadn’t crashed mid-lesson on the rare days the coffeemaker isn’t working.

            Today is not one of those days, and he quietly sings to himself as he walks down the hall back to his classroom. It’s quiet since the students are on their lunch break and David doesn’t have to worry about keeping up appearances. He’s built up a reputation of being a snarky, if strict teacher, and a rumor about him knowing the words to “This Town” would take all that away.

            _“Hyperbole,”_ he reminds himself. _“That’s a fine example of hyperbolic thinking.”_

            For the past two weeks, he had been discussing and reviewing literary terms with his three senior classes. His Advanced Placement kids had quickly gotten a hold of the material and spent most of the class going on tangents about books they’d read, even if it had little to do with the term in question. The University level students weren’t too bad, although they did use their phones a bit too often. His College level kids were an interesting bunch; many of them had taken the class because they wanted to go to college, simple as that. The stigma against College level classes was prevalent, and David admired his students’ dedication to studying. They were anything but the lazy, rowdy delinquents that the other teachers had made them out to be.

            _“Okay, some of them are delinquents, but they’re hardworking delinquents. That’s got to count for something.”_

            All in all, he’s got 61 English students under his jurisdiction (and he had English and Spanish classes next semester), so there are 60 essays of varying quality on The Handmaid’s Tale. There was often the odd assignment that came in late, but that was more likely to be the fault of a University level student than anyone else. He was in the middle of grading the 10th essay when he went to refill his coffee for the 3rd time that day. There was probably some kind of ratio that could derived from that, but that was more of Barnaby “Barney Peanuts” Schulz’s forte.

            Sitting on his desk is something that was most certainly not a senior’s essay; it was a someone. More specifically, it was Jack Kelly, the school’s resident Phys. Ed teacher and faculty hot-head (which definitely had nothing to do with the fact that he always had peppers with his lunch). As David walked in, he caught the baseball coach flipping through an essay that he had already graded.

            “So Breslin’s pretty good at English, huh?” Jack commented, not looking up from the paper. David takes the essay out of his hands and looks it over. “Oh, right. Ryan James has improved quite a bit since the beginning of the year. He’s at a 2.83 GPA. Enough to pass, so there’s no need to worry about eligibility, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

            Jack got up off the desk, shaking his head. “Listen, Davey,” he drawled, using the childish nickname that got on David’s nerves. “I actually wanted to talk to you about somethin’ I’ve been hearin’ in the locker room lately.”

            “I’m fairly certain that the rumors of teenage boys don’t constitute contemporary English literature, Coach Kelly.”

            “Nah, not that kinda stuff. Apparently there’s been some rumors going ‘round ‘bout you, and I want the truth.”

            Internally, David was screaming, going through the past few months second by second. Had someone heard him in the hallway earlier? Did a student find a picture of him from his time in high school? Maybe there was a video of him trying all the different free samples of hand lotion at Bath and Body Works making the rounds on student phones. There were countless possible scenarios that Jack could bring up, many of them embarrassing enough to force David to leave the country and move to the Republic of Guinea-Bissau and become a cashew farmer.

            _“Once again, hyperbole.”_

            On the outside, however, he simply put down Ryan James’ essay and sat in his chair. “Alright, tell me what you’ve been hearing.”

            Jack sat up on the desk, his eyes lighting up. “So, Greenberg was late for practice, so I was gonna give the team a talk on bein’ on time and give Greenberg suicides to do,” he began, his distaste for a boy in David’s University level class clear in his tone. “But then I heard them talkin’ ‘bout how you and Kath were having Thanksgiving dinner together.” David nodded, inwardly sighing in relief that his personal habits were still a mystery to the student body. “Yes, she was dining with my family that evening. What is it to them?”

            Before he could get past the first word, Jack had hopped off the desk, staring intently at him. “So you _are_ goin’ out with her!” he hollered, fist-pumping excitedly. “Now Race owes me ten bucks!” With an unimpressed huff, David got up, staring down at Jack. “Childish bet aside, what made you so sure that I was courting Ms. Plumber?”

            For the first time David could recall in his years of teaching at this school, Jack seemed to be at a loss for words. The coach shrank away, racking at his brain for something to back up his claim. “Well,” Jack began. “You’re both language nerds, so it’d make sense that you’d be together…” With each word, he grew more aware of how silly it sounded. The end of the sentence would have been lost if David hadn’t closed the distance between them.

            “What if I were to tell you that you weren’t entirely wrong, Coach Kelly?” David coolly asked, smirking at how Jack shifted from depressed to eager once more. It was a strange sort of power, to have another adult hanging so eagerly on his words. Even though David was a fair bit taller than Jack, the coach had an air of self-importance that caused students and faculty alike to follow his lead. But words were David’s weapon of choice. In the realm of his classroom, one couldn’t help but feel swept up in the sound of his voice.

            “She and I are quite amicable, I’ll agree,” he continued, slowly circling Jack. “My family is also fond of Ms. Plumber’s company. In fact, it was Sarah, my sister, who invited her to join us for dinner.” David sat opposite of him, taking a drink of his coffee. He watched amusedly as Jack processed the information, expressing his train of thought with wild hand flailing. After a period of silence, Jack finally looked up at him. “So … what you’re tellin’ me is that your sister… is tryin’ to hook you guys up too?”

            It took all of David’s willpower to not pick Jack up and literally throw him out of the room. Not that he’d be able to anyways; his lanky limbs would be ineffective against Jack’s tough, muscled frame. “No, Coach Kelly,” he sighed, setting his coffee down. “My sister has little interest in playing matchmaker for me. Rather, she asked Ms. Plumber of her volition.”

            “That means she made that choice on her own,” he added after looking at Jack’s blank gaze. “Nah, I got that,” the other man muttered. “I just don’t get why she would ask Kath to dinner… Wait, don’t tell me.” Jack was standing again, moving his hands to and fro as if physically connecting the dots. “Sarah and Kath are… they’re datin’?”

            For this epiphany of Jack’s, David had two responses prepared. Response A would involve him standing over Jack, using his height to his advantage as he pointed out how slow the coach was in his realization. Response B would require him to remain seated and politely explain how their fellow teacher came to be in a relationship with his sister. David eventually decided that he had no real reason to talk down to Jack, even if the thought of it filled him with a malevolent sense of excitement.

            So he simply nodded, looking over at Jack. “They met when I carpooled with Sarah when my car was being fixed. I went into the school since I was running late for my own class, but Katherine stayed outside, talking with my sister. Although I am not involved in her personal affairs, Sarah did tell me that she had, er, hit it off with her quite well,” David recalled, stumbling over the colloquialism he found himself using. “Anyhow, I suppose that you owe Mr. Higgins ten dollars now.”

            Even as David sat down and reorganized his pile of essays, Jack remained standing in front of him, looking lost more than anything. The end-of-lunch bell was due to ring soon, and the students would be trickling back to their classes in a few minutes. “Dave, listen,” Jack piped up, uncharacteristically quiet. “I…I didn’t actually hear any rumors in the locker room.”

            “Well, now that’s certainly a surprise, considering how they can’t keep their mouths closed in class.”

            “That’s not what I meant.” Jack looked at David, his eyes glowing with a kind of ferocity that a predator had for its prey. “I didn’t know how to ask about it, so I-” The bell rang, cutting his sentence off. With a sigh (of frustration or relief, David couldn’t place it), Jack started rifling through the papers on the desk, eventually picking up a blank sheet of lined paper. Before David could protest, the coach had taken the pen out of his hand and had scribbled down a few words. “Meet me here after school,” Jack whispered as students began coming in. “I can explain everything later.”

            Perhaps it was surprise from Jack’s strange behaviour. Maybe it was concern for his fellow teacher. Or it could have been the sense of power he felt over the normally proud and mighty Jack Kelly. But there had to be a reason that David held onto Jack’s hands for a moment longer than necessary as he took the pen and paper back. “Well, uh, thank you, Coach Kelly,” he mumbled as he put the note into his bag. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a class to teach.”

            He nodded as headed towards the door. “Gotcha, Davey,” he called out before he stepped out. “And please, just call me Jack!” It took David a whole seven minutes to get his class to calm down and turn their attention to discussing J.D Salinger and away from a different J and D.

            It was going to be a long three hours.

///

            Five hours later, David was sitting alone at a booth at some diner called Jacobi’s. Between resisting the urge to use his laptop and thinking about how he almost has the same last name as a restaurant, he was running out of ways to keep himself occupied. Being the polite, courteous adult he was raised to be, he had arrived ten minutes before the time Jack had written down. That same man was almost twenty minutes late.

            _“Maybe this was some sort of prank of his. He knows that I’m always busy, and he takes some sort of perverse pleasure in making me waste time. What if he’s watching me right now? This coffee cup could be bugged with a camera. Are there other people in on this conspiracy to make me look stupid?”_

_“Relax, Jacobs. Take a deep breath, you’re overthinking things again. He’s probably just running late. His car could have broken down, or perhaps he’s attempting to use public transit.”_

_“Of course, it wouldn’t have killed him to tell me if he was going to be late.”_

As he got up to stretch his legs (and perhaps ask for another refill of coffee), a man in a tan jacket and what appeared to be at least two scarves barreled through the door, startling a woman who was just about to leave. David could only sit in shock as the man stumbled towards him, plopping down in the booth opposite. “Sorry I was late, Dave,” he (with he here being Jack) panted. “Turns out biking on slushy sidewalks isn’t such a great idea after all.” After catching his breath and mumbling something about rights of way, he smiled up at David. “So about the note I left for you…”

            “Did you have to do that in front of my class, Coach Kelly?”

            “Jack! Just call me Jack. Hell, I’ll even go by Jackie if you prefer.”

            “...Fine. Did you have to do that in front of my class, _Jack_?” David repeated, putting the emphasis on the name. “We have an obligation to be professional in front of our students, and that… that episode certainly didn’t help.” The lesson he had planned to use as an introduction to  The Catcher in the Rye had turned into a field day of whispers and passed notes. Although none of his University level students were foolish enough to ask him any direct questions, David could feel twenty-five pairs of eyes on him as he tried to turn their attentions back to the life of Jerome David Salinger.

            _“A David who wrote one of the most culturally impactful novels of all time, not a David who is somewhat frustrated and confused over the actions of his fellow teacher. That’s something worth learning about.”_

Jack leaned back in his booth, a smug grin on his face. “What’s the matter, man? All I did was ask to meet up with you after work. We’re friends, ain’t we?” David felt himself nodding, even if he was thinking otherwise. Could he really consider Jack a friend? He knew that the coach was much closer to other members of the faculty, namely Anthony “Racetrack” Higgins (a chemistry teacher with a knack for leading unauthorized experiments) and Danielle “Smalls” Bennett (the wood shop teacher who has done at least eight repairs for the counters in Mr. Higgins’ lab).

            _“Come to think of it, I don’t even have a Jack-given nickname. But that’s an issue for another time.”_

“Alright,” he says, leaning forward to face Jack. “You said you had something to explain, Jack. Now the floor is yours.” David felt hungry for the power he had over Jack earlier, but he faltered as the other man mirrored his position. “Do you want the quick answer,” he drawled out. “Or the detailed one?” It was like a dance with both of them trying to lead the other. A struggle of power, with Jack showing his prowess with words as well. Perhaps it wasn’t as sophisticated as David’s vocabulary, but it was a formidable match.

            “The quick one.”

            “Hm, eager aren’t you?”

            “I refuse to dignify that with a response.”

            Jack’s grin didn’t shrink as he leaned in, his eyes aglow with juvenile mischief. David found himself leaning away, even as Jack crawled on top of the table. With very little room left to move back, he closed his eyes, not quite sure what to expect. A laugh? A ruffling of the hair?

            A kiss?

            He didn’t know who made the first move. It was slow, awkward even. But as lips met lips, David felt himself relax, as if Jack was the best alcohol he’d ever had. Slipping inhibitions, looser morals, _in vino veritas._ He didn’t care who was watching. All David wanted was to drink in Jack, to not be away from him.

            “Davey…” he felt against his lips. “Hold up just a moment.” As Jack pulled away, David adjusted his hair, trying to fix his clothes. He felt like a giddy teenager who just got out of Seven Minutes in Heaven, all embarrassed and hormonal. “Yes? What’s wrong? Was it too much tongue, or not enough maybe?”

            Jack let out a laugh, one pure and bright. It was the sound of freedom, of high spirits. “No, God no. That was probably up there in the top five kisses I’ve had at least,” he rambled, catching his breath. “We just, uh, spilled your coffee there…” David looked with dismay at the trail of brown liquid flowing across the table from the cup and onto a growing puddle on the ground. “Oh, damnit,” he cursed. “I’ll grab some-”

            Jack held up his hand, then got some napkins from the dispenser and started wiping up the mess. Not being one to sit idly by, David began to help, his hands often colliding with Jack’s as they attempted to wipe up what was once a perfectly good cup of coffee.

            “So is this how we start off?” Jack asks, discreetly smelling his hands. “Cleaning up after my clumsiness?” David nodded as he passed Jack some hand sanitizer that he kept in his bag. “It’s not the most original first date, but it’ll suffice.”

            “Hold up. Did you, David ‘We have an obligation to be professional’ Jacobs, just call this a date? Pinch me, I must be dreamin’!”

            “Well, it would be more of a date if you got me some coffee to make up for it, Jack Kelly.”

            “You used my first name and I didn’t have to ask you! Hell yeah!”

            David put his hand on Jack’s shoulder, trying to stifle his laughter. “Calm down, would you? I admire your energy, but not everyone feels the same way. Well, I more than admired it… I loved it, and I still do,” he confessed, his cheeks reddening just a bit.

            “So the nerd has a crush on the jock? Don’t you got some fancy term for that?”

            “There probably is, but I think I’d call it love.”

            It was Jack’s turn to blush as he leaned in again. “So would I, Davey,” he whispered against his lover's lips. “So would I.”  

**Author's Note:**

> I may make this into a series of its own, but that depends on how I feel about it.
> 
> Comments, kudos, and suggestions are greatly appreciated!


End file.
